Michael McGrath

Every meeting is logged.

Notes are kept of meetings.

I meet with a wide array of stakeholders and the job is very transparent in that way, as it should be, because of the impact of the decisions that we make.

But I make no apologies for engaging.

with the tech sector.

I do so regularly as I do with other sectors because of the nature of my brief, which is very much about data.

It's about consumer protection.

If you think about how more and more of us are doing our shopping online, that raises consumer protection issues.

You think about the role of technology when it comes to protecting the integrity of democracy and elections, the spread of disinformation.

So this contact and engagement is actually crucial so that they understand EU policy, that I can explain EU policy, what it means and what it doesn't mean, but also that they have an opportunity to set out their point of view.

Well, I think it's important to emphasise that the EU is a world leader in digital regulation.

And when I travel around the world as an EU commissioner, there is a huge amount of interest in the EU's approach to digital regulation because the rest of the world is waking up to these very issues that the EU has been focused on for a number of years.

Well, actually, if you look across the United States at a state level, you have many initiatives that are focused on child protection online.

In particular, you have state led initiatives to regulate big tech.

So we need to get the balance right within the EU.

As you know, President von der Leyen has set up an expert panel to examine the issue of child safety online.

We expect that they will report back in July and we will come to a prompt decision then about whether to propose an EU-wide legislation in the area of social media and age restrictions.

Look, the United States administration is entitled to their view, but they too are grappling with the same issues that we are when it comes to the impact of technology.

And technology is transformative, brings huge benefits, but you need to have guardrails.

The same is true, for example, when it comes to AI.